"Let me add, that it is the great desideratum, by which this form of Government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind." Federalist 10, James Madison

One of the worst things about heroes is that someday, you have to say goodbye to them. Such was the case this week when I learned of the retirement of Congressman George Miller. Then I read E. J. Dionne's fantastic Op-Ed, "The lost art of tough liberalism," which uses Miller's career as something of a guidebook for the rest of us, and I got to thinking.
If, like Congressman Miller, we are to stand firmly for our ideals – but practically and with a spirit of bi-partisanship – I could not be more proud of the Next Generation team behind the Risky Business initiative. Earlier this week, Risky Business announced the members of the Risk Committee, a group of American leaders from across the political spectrum dedicated to quantifying the economic risks of climate change in the US. Two of those members, Robert Rubin and Tom Steyer, took the stage this week at the Ceres 2014 Investor Summit on Climate Risk to engage the financial community on the topic. Read all about them in this week's California Energy & Climate News.
There is no dearth of heroes within the Next Generation staff, either. This week saw the long-awaited release of The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, which featured the chapter "Marriage, Motherhood and Men," by Ann O'Leary, Vice President and Director of Next Generation's Children and Families Program and the Director of the Too Small to Fail initiative. Just days later, Kate Gordon, Vice President and Director of our Energy and Climate program, was named to the Citizen's Oversight Board for California's Proposition 39, where she will help oversee the allocation of an expected $2.75 billion in funds earmarked for energy efficiency upgrades for schools in the Golden State.
As old heroes move on, capable new ones are here to keep us moving forward – a comforting thought, especially on the holiday reserved for one of our greatest American heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr.
I hope it's a good one for you all.
– Matt James, President and Co-Founder

Language – regardless of its country of origin – plays an important role in the development of an infant's brain. The more diversity in words a child hears during these early years, the better she will be at picking out meaning in what she reads and applying it to other things she learns as she gets older. more »

Robert Rubin knows a thing or two about economic risk. As Treasury Secretary to President Clinton, Rubin advocated for balanced budgets through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. This week Rubin joined the Risk Committee of a new research effort, called Risky Business, which will estimate potential U.S. economic costs from current and projected impacts of global climate change.

Fifty-two percent of minimum wage earners in the U.S. are women, and the vast majority of them are parents. Children of single-parent families, particularly those living in low-income households, do not fare as well as their peers living in two-parent families. Marriage matters; but promoting it, as the only panacea for curing poverty in America, is a myopic approach to addressing a complex series of overlapping problems.

Pension funds, insurance companies, foundations and investment managers control about $76 trillion in assets but are committing less than two percent of the funds under their control to clean energy infrastructure. UN Climate Chief, Christiana Figueres believes cost competitive, renewable technologies and attractive investment opportunities exist now; and, by scaling up their investments in the foundation of a clean energy economy, institutional investors can reap a profit and save the planet at the same time.

The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee workers access to any form of paid leave. This year, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the FAMILY Act, which creates a self-funded, paid family medical leave insurance program, an earned benefit, available to every worker in America, no matter how big a company they work for, whether they work part-time or are self-employed.

In this trailer for "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink," Maria Shriver introduces "The One" – The single mom or grandmother, the neighbor or friend. She's working hard for her family, her community, and her country, and she needs our support.